Yeah, that's why It was weird seeing this guy extolling the merits of Harden's MVP. I was tricked last year into think Cowherd was a Harden supporter. Cowherd just uses Harden to hate on Westbrook.
Rockets aren’t going to be good in the playoffs and the thunder are built for the playoffs. Would take the thunder over rockets
He's said it consistently up through at least the last week. I have admittedly not heard his show since Friday.
Such a shame. I used to really enjoy Collin for a number of years. The past couple he’s been insufferable for me.
I guess well thats his opinion. It won't affect what the Rockets do in the playoffs. I agree with his points here though.
Easy rebuttal to colon os that Lebron is in the east and Harden played tougher competition in the West. Also, Harden has to mesh his game with another ball dominant player and he still put up amazing numbers + he won.
When MENSA members like Scal and Broussard make you look like a dumbass, it's time to rethink your life choices.
"built for the playoffs" or "it's playoffs so way different. " has got to be one of my new favorite dumb sports urban legends. My theory is that the main things that allow teams to be successful in the regular season also allow them to be successful on the playoffs, hence the strong correlation between regular season success and postseason success in most sports. There are undoubtedly outliers. But a lot of these have a mitigating factor - the 1995 Rockets, who basically had a whole new team in the playoffs. The 99 Knicks who were playing in a weird 50 game lockout year. For the most part however, in the NBA, the top seeds take home the titles....as one would expect. (75% of champs are 1 seeds, 14% are 2 seeds, 10% are 3 seeds - and just 3% have come from the rest (95 Rockets at 6 and 69 Celtics at 4) The main things that differentiates 'in the playoffs" from regular season that seem obvious are: 1) the quality of the opposition is higher 2) the schedule is compressed and players are already worn down, and badly timed injuries can destroy you, making some level of depth a necessity 3) matchups/mismatches can be exploited with slightly more discipline since you don't have to worry about another team tomorrow usually. Which probably leads you back to 2) - you need depth or options if you get a bad matchup. I can't think of too many ways a team would be "built for the playoffs" and not for the regular season if they're using the same players in both. It seems like being a deep, talented team capable of beating good teams repeatedly is kind of the way to go. A team that benefited from beating up on weak opponents might qualify as not being "built for the playoffs"? I don't really know how much this happens though. You can argue all Eastern Conference champs suffer from this...though it's not a good argument IMO, insofar this disadvantage becomes an advantage of having an easy field as LeBron's 80-zillion consecutive trips to the Finals show. Maybe a team that relies heavily on rookies is at a disadvantage l? As rookies tend to underachieve relative to their box score this may be something, and lots of rating systems/bettors will toss in a "playoff experience" modifier at the margins. NBA schedules are not identical, like Euro soccer, but everybody plays everybody 2-4 times, and Strength of Schedule is dominated by tanking teams (Suns) that play 4 games against juggernauts with the juggernauts Houston and Toronto bringing up the rear in each conference SOS, since they didn't get to play themselves and add +200 wins to their SOS. Anyway with the nebulous criteria in mind, other than not having to play against themselves...how are the Rockets not "built for the playoffs"? They're heavily reliant on 1-2 players but so is everyone else and otherwise can field a pretty quality rotation up to 10 guys. They pretty much beat all comers (save Toronto) at least once or more at full power. They don't really seem inherently solvable more so than anyone else given all the articles written about how unstoppable Harden despite the fact that everyone already knows waht he's going to do when he gets the ball. Conversely there's not really a ton about the Thunder that would go in the other direction. I know since they win more than expected against some good teams they get the "play to the level of competition" cliche but I'm not really convinced that's a real thing...plus the sample size is tiny. Do we really read a lot into them beating up on Utah back in December when they sucked? Or do we say the Rockets get this bonus too since they got clowned by the tanking Grizzlies. They don't have much depth given that they rely on Corey Brewer in 2018....to shoot 3s! And they don't exactly bring a brilliant gane plan other than "Russ gonna go win this" and will even abandon working plans in order to revert to that plan in a close game. There probably IS such a thing as being "built for the playoffs" in some sports? its probably a marginal advantage. Cold Weather football teams come to mind...? Dominant starters in baseball? Also in soccer World Cup, given that a lot of times they're fielding all star teams that don't play together alot, and since it's a one-off knockout stage, there's probably some edges to be had with having a player capable of individual brilliance like a Messi/Neymar/Ronaldo, a corps of players from the same club, particularly on defense or in midfield. Anyway screw Cowherd.
I think that cliche--"built for the playoffs"--is just an idiot's way of saying a team plays to the level of its opponent which in and of itself is not something I'd be proud of. OKC, by this definition, is definitely "built for the playoffs" because it's leader only puts in extra effort to produce an overall game when they play the Rockets and Warriors of the world and then manage to lose to the bottom feeders.
I don't even think that means anything. it just means they're in the middle. Beat some good teams, lose to some, beat some bad, lose to some. playing "to level of competion" = you're near .500, right?
That's it folks .. wrap it up .. it's a done deal because Brian Scalabrini says so. Wasn't he hating not long ago about something Rocket related!
